I. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to a cowling for a marine propulsion engine and, more particularly, a latch assembly for releasably securing an upper cowling member to a lower cowling member.
II. Discussion of the Prior Art
It is widely known in the art of engine driven watercrafts to provide a cowling to cover the propulsion engine. In general, such cowlings consist of two parts, an upper cowling, which extends over the engine, and a lower cowling. It is necessary that the upper cowling be removable from the lower cowling in order to perform engine maintenance. This requires that there be a latch mechanism to secure the upper cowling to and release it from the lower cowling.
Known prior art latch mechanisms for use in securing an upper cowling to a lower cowling include both fore and aft latching units that must be separately released. In order to disengage such aft latching units, a person must lean from inside the watercraft over the water to reach and disengage the rear latch unit. This creates a potentially dangerous situation. It has also heretobefore been proposed to link the fore and aft latch units of a cowling assembly with a wire cable, such that the rear latch unit can be disengaged from adjacent the rear of the watercraft. An example of such a prior art arrangement is represented by Japanese Patent Application Publication HEL 2-141390. In such prior art wire cable linkage arrangements, the wire cable linking the fore and aft latch units tends to develop slack over time such that operation of the latch mechanism from adjacent the rear of the watercraft fails to release the aft latch unit.
Therefore, there exists a need in the art for a latch assembly to releasably secure an upper cowling member to a lower cowling member for a marine propulsion engine, which can reliably release both fore and aft latch units from adjacent the rear of the watercraft even if slack develops in the wire cable linking the fore and aft latch units.